Teachers fear legal action over comments in reports

Teachers are limiting and censoring comments in report cards for fear of legal action.

The Victorian Independent Education Union, which represents non-government schools in Victoria, said teachers were concerned that defamation suits could be launched against them because of comments in reports.

The union's general secretary, Tony Keenan, said in one case a teacher was pressured to change a student's grade because of a threat of legal action. He said the teacher "held their ground" and the action was eventually dropped.

"The school environment is much more litigious than it ever used to be and I think teachers are very aware of this," he said.

"They are much more cautious and take a lot more time on report cards than ever before because of concern over legal action."

Victorian Education Minister Lynne Kosky said last week she wanted to take the "confusion" out of reports, and would tackle parents' concerns about limitations in the present system. But she was not in favour of a return to grading, giving A, B, C or D.

Mr Keenan said what teachers wrote in report cards had changed in the past 10 years.

"The days of saying 'such and such is a good student but needs to try harder' are over," he said.

"Teachers really need to be more constructive now and informative for parents.

"But I think also there are cases where they are not saying what they should be saying for fear of legal action."

Mary Bluett, the state president of the Australian Education Union, which represents all government schools, said while no cases had been reported to the union it was an area of major concern for teachers.

"It's an area of real concern that teachers have had and there is this general feeling that it is only a matter of time before we start to see cases (of legal action by parents over reports)," she said.

"I think particularly with the stress of VCE and perhaps parents feeling their child has not achieved the mark they deserve, it is really an area that could present problems for teachers.

"Parents could really place the blame with the teacher and then sue on behalf of the student - it's not unrealistic."

She said the union and the Law Institute of Victoria had produced a booklet to help teachers know their rights in defamation cases.

Lawyer David Leggatt, a partner at law firm Phillips Fox, said it was not unrealistic that a parent could sue a teacher on behalf of the student for comments in a report card.

"It's conceivable a student could sue but it would take some extreme conduct by the teacher for the action to be successful," he said.

He said the report card would need to be seen by other parties and a student would need to prove the comments were inaccurate and written with malice.